Photography by theonlydeadheadinthehameau

One Photo Focus: December 2015

My second contribution to the After-Before Friday Forum coincides with the monthly One Photo Focus. This requires all participants to edit the same image, which in this case has been provided by Julie Powell at Julie Powell Photography. Here is the original:

…and here is my edited version:

Herewith my rationale for the changes I made:

Cropped for balance, to put the flower itself at the centre of the picture

Darkened the background, to remove as much as possible that could distract from the subject. I also finished this off with a Lightroom pre-set Light Vignette

Adjusted the tone curve to soften the white in the petals (Clarity -24) and also bring out detail in the water drops on the right-hand side (Vibrance +30)

Most radically, I changed the colour at the centre of the image as the original yellow seemed to me to be rather ‘washed-out’. I simply took down the Yellow Hue adjuster to -100, which produced this – I think – more attractive salmon-pink tone

Cloned over the green ‘blob’ just to the left of centre in the flower, which was another distraction

Bryan, I love that you did this all in Lightroom! That is my program of choice, only because I understand it 🙂 Changing the color of the flower’s center from yellow to salmon was a really nice touch too. Thanks so much for participating! (My apologies for taking so long to comment – I’m usually a bit quicker, but time just got away from me this past week.)